Paullinia stellata
Content
Description
Woody vine 2-10 m long. Stems 4-5-costate, pubescent, tomentulose, or puberulent, glabrescent, producing scanty watery or milky sap; cross section with a single vascular cylinder, mature stems triangular, grooved. Stipules persistent, 3-4 mm long, deeply dissected with ovate outline, pubescent. Leaves pinnately 5-foliolate; petioles and rachis terete, unwinged, tomentulose, petioles 6-11 cm long, rachis 2.5-8 cm long; leaflets chartaceous, minutely hirto-tomentose beneath, elliptic, oblong-elliptic to oblanceolate, 7-14.5 × 3.5-7 cm, the base acute on distal leaflets, obtuse to rounded on lateral ones, the apex acuminate and mucronate or sometimes obtuse, the margins remotely denticulate or entire; tertiary veins finely clathrate. Thyrses spicate, densely flowered, tomentulose; bracts ovate, ca. 1 mm long, tomentulose, non-overlapping; bracteoles lanceolate, ca. 1 mm long; cincinni sessile, few-flowered, with persistent pedicel bases (3-3.5 mm long), spaced out along inflorescence rachis; pedicels 4.5-5 mm long, tomentulose. Calyx of 5concave, tomentose, sepals, the outer sepals ca. 2.5 mm long, ovate-rounded, the inner sepals ca. 4.5 mm long, ovate to rounded; petals spatulate, 4.5-5 mm long, adaxially sparsely papillate; appendages ⅔ as long as the petals, with a fleshy, yellow crest and ciliolate margins; disc of 2rounded posterior, and 2 smaller lateral lobes, hirtous; filaments hirtous. Capsules golden or orange, depressed-globose or globose, unwinged, 6-costate, coriaceous-crustose, densely hirtous-tomentose, long-stipitate, apiculate at apex, 1-seeded, the locule 1-1.3 cm long, the stipe 4-6 mm long; endocarp lanose. Seed oblate, dark brown, with a sarcotesta on ¾ of its length.